Chapter 479: The Future of the Team

Nicola and Edith did not show too much discomfort in the Muggle middle school. Although their grades were a bit ugly, their excellent physical fitness also won the admiration of many Muggles. After experiencing an afternoon of moving reunion with old friends, they embarked on the return journey.

After leaving that small town, Harry was completely relieved for the two children, but also completely gave up on the Galaxy Battleship of Quidditch. What he had to do now was to piece together a usable lineup from the existing personnel as soon as possible, and, he had to consider sustainability.

The reason was simple. He could easily promote three Chasers from the few who failed to be selected last year and let Jin Ni play as Seeker for another year, but what about after that? When Harry, Luo En, and McLaggen all graduate and leave school, Jin Ni will face a collapse-like situation again. And if she has no choice but to choose some temporary combat power from the sixth and seventh years, then when Jin Ni also leaves, the Gryffindor team will fall into a long dark moment.

In view of this, Harry believed that it was necessary to select more lower-grade students to participate in training matches and as substitutes in advance. This year, he had plenty of time to train these players well, leaving a usable lineup for Jin Ni as much as possible.

If the tone of cultivating from scratch was set, Harry looked at the three loyal little fans beside him again.

"Children, are you interested in Quidditch?" he asked. "I need some decent lower-grade students as substitutes to participate in training, so that they can be promoted directly to starters after the senior students graduate."

Carl said happily: "I'm willing, I fly well, I can be a Seeker."

Orion also recommended himself, "I want to be a Beater!"

After the two partners expressed their stance, Quinn, who was a bit hesitant, shook the fat on his body and said with a stiff scalp: "I, I can be a Keeper."

"A very good combination." Harry looked at them with a smile. "Remember to come when the time comes."

In order to make the team form combat effectiveness as soon as possible, Harry couldn't wait to start the trial training immediately. The time was set for the second Saturday after school started. This time, more people arrived than last time, because there was a precedent for special admission, and this year's first-year students also held borrowed brooms and surrounded the sidelines.

With so many people together, it was too chaotic. Harry looked at the giggling crowd with a headache, but soon he realized that he didn't need to have such a headache—at this moment, Jin Ni was the captain.

"Listen!" She waved her wand and shouted in a loud voice, "Everyone who is not participating in the trial training go to the stands, don't surround here! Those participating in the trial training get ready. We will fly two laps around the stadium first. If you can't even master the most basic flying, don't giggle and join the fun here, especially you first-year students who have only had one flying class!"

Her confident appearance on the stadium and her dancing fire-red hair made Harry feel a bit dazed, and then he understood why—Mrs. Mo Li was like this in the kitchen.

After the second lap, many students fell behind, and they could only leave in dismay at this moment. And Jin Ni accelerated in the third lap, eliminating another batch of players without talent.

After three laps, she arranged different trial training projects for different people. Harry and Luo En were responsible for assessing the Seeker and Keeper respectively. What they had to do was very simple, that was to take a Bludger and keep hitting it toward the players, then call it back with a spell, and hit it again, so as to simulate the situation of being targeted on the stadium.

Harry admired Jin Ni for being able to think of this trial training method. He felt that the players selected in this way must have strong stress resistance. This ability was not only crucial on the competition field, but in daily training, good stress resistance could also allow new players to learn more from experienced old players.

After hitting a trial training student off the broom with a hit again, Harry shouted with his throat: "Next!"

"No more." Dean, who was holding a notebook on the side, said, "You hit the last one off too."

Harry swept a look at these crooked students on the ground with a look of hating iron for not becoming steel, and shouted: "Those who haven't dodged a single ball can leave first, and the rest come here to gather."

The lower-grade students stood in line in front of him dejectedly. Harry turned to ask Dean: "Who performed the best?"

"Richel Gutt, he dodged six times." Dean said.

Harry looked at this plain-looking boy. He remembered this person; he came to try out for Beater last year. Perhaps, he could dodge six Bludgers not because he was good at stress resistance, but because he knew Beaters better.

"I remember you, Gutt," Harry said earnestly, "Your accuracy as a Beater is very good, but there is no power. If you want to be a Seeker, you still have to know how to find the Snitch."

"I believe finding the Snitch can be practiced." He tried to make his tone confident.

"Alright, join the team first. Are there any other lower-grade students who performed well?"

"Natalie McDonald and Dennis Creevey, they both dodged four hits, but Natalie almost caught the Snitch."

"I want them all, people can change positions." Harry said, "Seeker is the easiest to change positions, because the basic skills of flying are the most solid."

In the chat, the other positions also completed the selection one after another. Adhering to the idea of planning ahead, they each selected some lower-grade students who performed well. And the next arrangement for the positions was a huge test for Jin Ni. Harry had several vague ideas in his heart, but he deliberately didn't say them, hoping that Jin Ni could use this to develop a big-picture thinking.

"Eve, write it down, I make the following arrangements: Richel Gutt and Dean Thomas, serve as Chasers with me, Natalie McDonald and Quinn Kowalski rotate as Seekers, Beaters and Keepers remain unchanged, this is our starting lineup."

Harry never expected that Quinn also came to participate in the trial training, and even more never expected that he was arranged as a rotating Seeker. He almost wanted to ask Jin Ni what she was thinking. However, out of respect for the captain, he didn't speak first.

"Owen Caldwell, Kevin Whitby, Vicky Frobisher serve as Chaser substitutes, Orion Rosier and Carl Tennyson serve as Beater substitutes, there is no substitute for Keeper, but Quinn is responsible for keeping the goal in training matches."

Other arrangements were quite good, cleverly using the commonality of each position to complete the dispatch, but the arrangement for Quinn made Harry completely confused.

"That's it for today, we start our first training tomorrow at two o'clock." Jin Ni said.

"No, what are you thinking?" As soon as the newcomers dispersed, Harry asked impatiently.

"Yeah, that little fatty is obviously a good seedling for a Keeper, why let him guest-star as a Seeker?" Luo En also asked.

Jin Ni glanced around, pulled them over and said mysteriously: "I seem to be letting Quinn find the ball, but in fact, I am leaving an opportunity for Edith to come back."

"How can this—"

"Use Polyjuice Potion." She whispered, "Anyway, she was our player originally, this doesn't count as cheating."

"As for Natalie," before Harry and Luo En expressed opposition, Jin Ni had already straightened her body and raised her volume to suppress them, "Let her focus on training cooperation with the Chasers. This can not only maximize the score, but also pave the way for her to transform into a Chaser in the future."

"From the perspective of team operation, this is correct," Eve added. "Seeker is very talented, but you only need talent to quickly become a qualified Seeker; on the contrary, Chaser doesn't need much flying talent, but without long-term training and grinding, you can't play the Chaser position well. So, we can develop innovative player career planning based on this point. For Seekers with average talent, they can be directly included in the team battle lineup for cultivation. In the future, when encountering Seekers with better talent, you can transfer her to the Chaser position, immediately realizing the qualitative change in team combat effectiveness."

"But wouldn't there be too many Chasers?" Luo En frowned and asked.

"So we need to adopt a Chaser age dislocation system to ensure that at least one Chaser graduates every year and at least one Chaser stays. Of course, I think we can also make reasonable adjustments from the perspectives of talent, style, and tactical adaptability, leaving more flexible space for position changes, ensuring that the school team can still retain a certain combat effectiveness after top players graduate and leave school, and when genius teenagers appear in the lower grades, their talent can be quickly cashed into trophies."

"Based on this system, I think it is very necessary to add the positions of 'Manager' and 'Coach'. Of course, these two positions were usually held by the captain concurrently in the past, but if the captain doesn't have so much energy or so much thinking, he can also find other students to serve—I will combine various tactics this year as soon as possible, propose some sub-role breakdowns and optional matching schemes for each position, and by the way, provide as many referenceable team configuration ideas as possible for those who come later."

"First talk about this year's situation, this year is still a golden year, Harry and Luo En are both heavy artillery, McLaggen belongs to the city wall, so we can optimize the scoring lineup, lock the victory on weak teams as much as possible, so Natalie needs to cultivate team battle priority. On the Chaser side, Jin Ni is the breakthrough player, Gutt is the long-pass player, Dean needs to focus on training shooting and breaking the goal, he needs to find his own scoring method, strengthen psychological game training, or form better cooperation with the Beaters."

"Based on this point, in fact, good friends like you belong to Chaser and Beater can truly maximize the benefits. The double Beater configuration is more biased toward four-protect-one. If you didn't have the good luck to recruit Edith last year, I'm afraid it would be quite difficult to play."

When Eve was talking eloquently while holding the notebook, Harry had to admit that she found her own Quidditch track, and Luo En's eyes also began to become different. ===== CHAPTER 480 =====